Payback
by Diskret
Summary: That night she committed her first murder. It was so easy, and perhaps that was why it was so easy the next time too, and the one after that, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. She was driven by hate and love.


Death is questionable.

Not in the sense that you can avoid it – because you can't – but you can manipulate it. You can murder someone, and make it come quicker, or you can treat someone or take care of your body to avoid it for a while. The moirae in Greek Mythology who decided who lived and who died are all complete bullshit. Even a god can't say, 'you live, but you on the other hand die,' because if someone gets their head separated from their body not even a god can say, 'oh well, it's just a scratch – you'll be on your feet in no-time.'

And this is something that Medea Zabini learned from life's rough path.

As a child, and a young woman, Medea was timid and shy, and rarely spoke up. The Wizarding World was called just that for a reason, because it was a man ruled world, and quiet and soft-minded women were greatly appreciated. Sweet Italian Medea was therefore at the tender are of sixteen already considered a great catch. Her father practically rubbed his hands the sunny day in mid-June when Goreus Greenwing asked for her hand in marriage. Let's just say that his stunning beauty was the cause of her father's glee, but rather his more than generous vaults at Gringotts. The pair married in April the next year, after Medea had become of age.

In Medea's up-bringing the concept of love had not been taught. As the only child in a family almost too close to the poor region to be accepted in the pureblood Britain, the goal for her wasn't 'do whatever you want to be happy', but more something along the lines of 'please the wealthy men and pray to god if that Muggle mumbo jumbo exists that you won't be ugly'. The word 'love' hadn't even been part of her vocabulary until a friend at Hogwarts had asked her if she had ever been in love. As sad as it was, that was just how it could be in the pureblood society at the time, and Medea wasn't a very strong-willed young woman – it didn't ever occur to her to question how things were.

And now can you of course wonder, "what happened to the soft minded girl for her to become that Black Widow of a woman with seven late husbands and her mind set for another one?"

That is a simple answer; Goreus Greenwing happened to her.

Wizading Britain was a quite narrow-minded society back then, and – as people discovered after the first rise of Lord Voldemort, when many notorious Death Eaters walked free – money could get you far beyond the laws. That was the reason why Goreus wasn't behind bars for nearly beating his previous wife and his mistress to death. Actually it's not certain that Medea's father wouldn't have married her off to the monster of a man anyway, too blinded by the money to care for his daughter's welfare.

To Goreus credit – how small it may be – it must be mentioned that he tried surprisingly long to fight his sadistic urges. It was well over a year after they married that he hit Medea the first time. Later in life she would think of that stroke, not more than a slap across the cheek, as the point where her life changed – this was the point where Medea realised that life shouldn't be like this. Life was supposed to happy, not this prison of a house where her husband was the guard.

She didn't fight back like a healthy person would do after the realisation, she didn't try to rebel and change her life. She simply drew back into her shell, and when she lay in bed that night, with her sleeping husband behind her, she cried her eyes out.

After that first slap it wasn't long before the second came. It was like a dam where a small hole had been created, getting bigger and bigger until some day it would break completely.

It was just slaps to begin with, hard and open-palmed, and he would hit her over the smallest things. If she sneezed after he had told her to be quiet, or if he caught her daydreaming. It was after he split her lip when he slapped her that the fist started coming. It was probably the blood that triggered the animal in him, and he couldn't fight it any longer.

Her physical condition was of course not an issue, they were witches and wizards after all, and Medea was now quite good at bruise healing spells and at mending broken bones, but her mental health was an entirely different thing. It wasn't just the punching and the kicking anymore, he started using sex as a way of hurting her and started with the vocal assault.

"You fucking whore," he would yell as he twisted her arm and thrust into her harder, "opens your legs to the first man with a Galleon."

And her only way to respond was to crawl deeper into herself and grow even quieter.

The day that Medea found out that she was pregnant was the first time she cried since night he first hit her. There was no joy for her in that message, only sadness. She didn't want to put a child into the world with Goreus as its father. But there was nothing she could do about it – Goreus had been with her when she got the news, and as soon as the Medi-witch had left her husband hit her several times in the face, saying that he couldn't even be sure it was his with such a whore for wife.

Despite his words he soon sent her to his sister, Aria, so she could take care of Medea through her pregnancy. He probably wasn't sure he could keep himself from hitting her and maybe hurt the baby.

So Medea, now nineteen years old, spent seven glorious months away from Goreus, at Aria's mansion in northern Ireland. She was nice enough, but a bit aloof, and she obviously knew exactly what kind of person her brother was. She never mentioned it to Medea though, as if the problem would go away if you looked away.

Medea's son, Blaise, was born on a gloomy November morning, and for the first time in her life, Medea felt love. She loved that shrieking little bundle of joy with all her heart. She didn't care that his father was a monster, because this baby was perfect, and she would protect him from all the bad in the world.

And at the very top of the list named 'All the bad in the world' was Goreus Greenwing.

The plan had been for Medea and Blaise to go back to Goreus to rest there, but Medea caught a very bad fever and the Medi-witch recommended that they stayed in Ireland until she was feeling better.

She often wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn't gotten that sick, if she had gone back to Goreus. She was pretty certain that neither she or Blaise would have survived a year.

In the middle of the night two days after Blaise's birth Medea stumbled out of bed. Just on her way from the bed to her wand only a few meters away she had to stop several times and close her eyes to make the room stop spinning and to gather strength.

How she was able to Apparate in her current condition (or even thinking of the idea to try in the first place) would forever be a mystery to her, but whatever the reason, she was extremely thankful.

That night she committed her first murder.

It was so easy, and perhaps that was why it was so easy the next time too, and the one after that, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one. She was driven by hate and love – hate towards her husband and love towards her child. Just by the flick of her wrist she pushed him down under the water-surface of the bathtub. Medea watched her husband as he thrashed about, trying to get up for air, and she felt absolutely nothing.

His eyes turned big and staring as he started to still. And she felt nothing.

By the time the Aurors came to talk to her she was once again lying in her bed, sweating with fever. The Medi-witch didn't understand it – she was recovering so quickly, but suddenly it got so much worse again, just over a night. Medea was still sleeping when the Medi-witch told the Aurors that it was no way that Medea would have been able to get out of bed in the middle of the night to kill her husband. The Aurors left after that, Aria had promised to tell her newly widowed sister-in-law.

As Medea heard about her husband's sudden passing for the first time she didn't act sad. With Goreus sister, who had grown up with the sadistic man, she didn't have to pretend to miss the bastard. She merely smiled and asked for her baby.

In the seventy-four years after Blaise was born that Medea lived to see she never once referred to him, or ever thought of him, as her son. It was always 'her child' or 'her Blaise'. It was too strong of a reminder that he was a man, and her sweet precious baby was nothing like those men that she had grown to hate.

If you thought about it, it actually made sense that she hated men. In all of her life the only two men she had ever been in close contact with was first her father and then her husband. Her father had been a cold and uncaring person, who through her childhood only saw Medea as an investment for future wealth. As earlier said, love was nothing that was practiced in his house. You already know the story of her husband.

Now the only question remaining is if what had happened to her made her actions justified. That question is something that everyone have to decide for themselves. The only thing we can be certain of is that Medea is convinced of that fact. Life had wronged her and this was her payback.


End file.
